Family
by Angelus of the Dragons
Summary: [oneshot] Young InuYasha has a runin with an unexpected visitor...[before his mom dies, after his father's death]


**Family**

**_What is a family, anyway?  
Is it someone who looks like us?  
Is it someone who acts like us?  
_****_Is it someone who sleeps beside us  
In the bed?_**

A small boy around the age of five or six ran around a village garden. His long, messy silver hair wavered behind him and his small red outfit was filthy with dirt stains. His young child-like golden eyes were glowing in happiness and content. His little silver puppy ears twitched at the sound of his mother calling him. He turned to see a woman in many colorful kimono's, standing before a pond filled with lilacsand floating flowers. Her soft onyx eyes glazed over in what he knew was pride. He smiled and quickly ran to her open arms, his tiny grubby one's barely making it around the front of her waist.

**_Is it someone who speaks like us?  
Hashands orfeet like us  
Or is it someone that we like the best?_**

"Mother!" He spoke. She smiled down at his tiny form and hugged him. He looked up to his mother's beautiful face and frowned. She was smiling, but there was no happiness behind her smile. He then thought back to what the village men called him time and time again, as did the children.

"...mother...?" He asked. She smiled down at him once more, sadness and guilt laced her feature's, though she did her best to hide it from her son...her pup. She nodded to him, some of her long raven locks falling over her shoulders.

"Yes, my InuYasha?" She said. His ears flattened against his head as he looked to the ground, then back up to his mother.

"What's a...half-breed...?" He asked. He frowned as he watched his mother's eyes change dramatically. They moistened over, becoming hazy and clouded. He cocked his head in confusion. Was his mother...crying?

**_I think family, family  
Is more than being friends  
When you're family, family  
The loving never ends_**

He gasped as he watched a stream of glittering tears stream down his mother's face, leaving behind streak marks. InuYasha whimpered a little as his mother hugged him tighter into her waist, closing her eyes as more tears streamed down her face. InuYasha hugged his mother back.

"Mother...? What's wrong...?" He asked. When his mother didn't respond, he merely settled with hugging her. Why was his mother so sad...? And why did he feel as if he were the cause of it...?

**_He doesn't look like us  
He doesn't eat like us_**

**_Yes, but he still likes to play the way we do_**

* * *

**_He doesn't walk like us  
He doesn't talk like us_**

**_But just think of all the things  
That we've been through_**

_'InuYasha...my little InuYasha...the pain you will have to live through your entire life, all because of what you are, what you represent. You don't understand now, and you won't for a while. You cannot feel the true pain those villagers scorn at you, cannot cry for you do not know why you are shunned. You are a hanyou...and half-demon. Part human, and then part demon...a union between something that never should exist..._

_You're father was a great demon. He was kind to me, strong, gentle, loving...as I'm sure he would have been to you. And yet, he was fierce. I knew he was a demon, so that meant he killed many beings. But I do know it was never without cause. He did not go around, killing and pilaging villages because he merely felt as if he could. He was peaceful with them...he always hated fighting, killing..._

**_He's family, family  
Though he may go away  
He has always been our family_**

_Oh InuYasha...how I wish you could have known your father for who he was, just as I know you for who you are. I do not see a merely disgusting half-breed. I see a child, a being...my son. I see a gentl, innocent soul that has yet to discover the cruelties of the world. Those villager's that scorn you are disgusted with me. I am a mere demon play thing to them. We both are outcast by the village. We are not accepted by humans, nor demons. But...I can change my future. You, however, InuYasha, cannot._

_You will never be accepted by either race. And I will be long gone before you become an adult. I pray for you to be happy. I pray for you to someday be accepted for who you are, my son. I pray that you will find love, just as I did. Oh, InuYasha...my little InuYasha...'_

**_And family he'll stay  
I guess someone that you like can make you angry  
That's something that we have to rise above  
Though families are different  
One thing stays the same_**

She smiled to herself as she hugged her child closer to her, and her heart.

"My little boy...my little InuYasha..." She muttered. InuYasha's ears twitched as he looked up to his mother, or at least tried to. His mother was so upset...

_'You cannot cry because you do not understand what life beholds you...so...I shall cry...for the both of us...'_

"Mother...please don't cry..."

* * *

**(Night)**

InuYasha sighed as he tossed in his bed again. He growled and flattened his ears against his head again as he glared at the opposite wall. All day, all this month he had felt some sort of calling to him. He felt as if something was coming, something important. But he just couldn't figure out what. He sat up in his bed and allowed his ears to twitch as his hair fell off his head with the cover. He got out of the bed and walked slowly over to a nearby window. He looked out of it and felt a longing again, felt as if he was empty, as if he should know something, but he didn't.

He looked up at the twinkling stars. He sighed again. His golden eyes then traveled to the moon. He smiled happily. A full moon...he loved to stare at the moon on nights like this. It comforted him somehow. A shiver traveled up his spine and he looked out to the dark forest that lay just behind his mother's home. His ear twitched as he heard some of the tree branches move. He sniffed the air. At first, he couldn't smell anything. But five more tries later, he found a faint scent that he caught a few weeks ago, definitely not belonging, but it was what caused his uneasiness for the past month.

He looked to the door and thought for a moment. He couldn't sneak out...could he? His mother was asleep...it was well after midnight...would he be able to?

InuYasha sniffed the air again and his eyes widened as the scent became fainter. He leapt out of the window without a second thought and ran quickly into the forest. He wanted...no, he **had** to find out what this scent was. He ran past trees and bushes, ignoring the pain as they whipped his face, leaving small searing cuts here and there. He would flinch occasionally, but...oh who cared! He was so close!

**_At the heart of every family  
Is love_  
**  
He ran into a clearing and stopped, suddenly regretting coming to the forest. Maybe he should have brought his mother...

He looked up at the stranger. His hair was long and shiny, seeming bluish in the moonlight, but he could tell that it too was silver, like his own. His eyes were a molten amber, darker than his. He had some red markings on his eyelids and two stripes on his cheeks. He also had a blue moon, crescent actually, on his forehead. There was also a fluffy pelt thing on his right shoulder, wrapping around and poofing everywhere. He had a white hakama on, with reddish flowers on the left shoulder and sleeve edges. He also had heavy looking armor on with a spiked loop around his left shoulder.

"Uh...h-hi?" InuYasha started. The stranger glared down at him, growling a little deep in his chest. InuYasha squirmed under his intense glare. He wanted to turn back, he knew what he was doing was obviously dangerous, but his curiosity kept him still. He wanted to know why he was so jittery over the last month.

"Hn..." Was all he got out of the stranger. He turned to leave, his hair flowing behind him. InuYasha's eyes widened. He just now got to see who this guy was, and now he's leaving! No! InuYasha reached out his arm.

"Wait!" He immediately pulled his hand back and fear overtook him as the man stopped, then slowly turned his head, glaring coldly at InuYasha. InuYasha, hesitating now, stepped back once.

"What do you want, half-breed?" He said. InuYasha felt thousands of tiny needles stab into his body. His ears twitched again, causing the strangers eyes to look at them immediately. InuYasha blushed.

**_And a family, a family  
Is something strong and fine  
You will always be part of his family_**

"Uh...I was wondering...if you were here like, a month or so ago?" InuYasha began. He might as well ask a question he knew. The stranger narrowed his eyes.

"Yes. I was patrolling. Why do you care, mutt?" He scolded. InuYasha flinched at the name. The villagers called him half-breed, but the children called him a dirty blooded mutt, and threw rocks at him and chased him through the village. He looked back up.

"Um...my name's InuYasha."He said. He waited for the stranger to respond, but he didn't. InuYasha sighed inwardly. He could already tell this guy wasn't very social.

"What's yours?" He said. The man turned back again and seemed to be ready to walk off, but he spoke.

"My name is Sesshomaru. You would do well to remember that, little brother..." And then he walked away. InuYasha stood there, perplexed. What...?

**_And he will always be a very, very big part of mine_**

"Brother...? Sesshomaru?" InuYasha said. He thought. The strange feeling and anxiousness was gone, so maybe that was it?

InuYasha smiled silently and ran back to his home, just as the sun began to peak up from the horizon.

He had a mother...

He had a brother...

No.

He had a family.

**_Family..._**

**The End...**

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Hope you like this little oneshot. I just figured that InuYasha had to meet his older brother somehow, because in the beginning of InuYasha, he knew who Sesshomaru was, but in the movie, his father died when he was born and Inu didn't know Sesshomaru. So, this takes place in the episode when litte Inu asks his mom what a half-breed is, and a little before his mother is killed by the villagers.

**PLEASE REVIEW!**

**Wolf of Moonlight logging off**

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